Confidence Man
The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America
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4.0 • 315 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
The #1 New York Times bestseller • Updated with new reporting through the 2024 election
"The definitive biography of Trump." —Financial Times
“Will be a primary source about the most vexing president in American history for years to come.” —Joe Klein, The New York Times
"A political epic." —The Guardian
“A uniquely illuminating portrait.” —Sean Wilentz, The Washington Post
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter most central to our knowledge of Donald J. Trump, the magnificent and disturbing Confidence Man chronicles his life and its meaning, including a reckoning with the 2024 election.
Few journalists working today have covered Donald Trump more extensively than Maggie Haberman. Now with a revelatory afterword on Trump's second presidential victory, Haberman shares the full depth of her understanding of the forty-fifth and forty-seventh president and of the Trump phenomenon.
Interviews with hundreds of sources, including Trump himself, portray a complicated and often contradictory historical figure. Capable of kindness but reliant on casual cruelty. Pugnacious. Insecure. Lonely. Menacing. Smarter than his critics contend and colder and more calculating than his allies believe. A man whose path to high office began thirty years before he became a president who pushed American democracy to the brink. Inevitably, Confidence Man is also about the world that produced such a singular character, and how the New York of the 1970s and '80s shaped Trump's rise. As Haberman makes clear, relentlessly transactional relationships, an overpowering survival instinct, and a fixation with loyalty have been throughlines of Trump's life - and continue to guide him. Her mastery of this illuminating biography, and her singular newsbreaking ability, make Confidence Man the definitive account of one of the most consequential eras in American history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Like a tsunami traveling hundreds of miles before it crashes onshore, the shock of Donald Trump's election and polarizing presidency was less sudden than it first appeared, according to this sprawling account from Pulitzer winner Haberman. Drawing on decades spent covering Trump, Haberman is especially insightful on how his combative instincts and transactional worldview were forged in the cauldron of New York City's racialized politics and cutthroat real estate market. She documents tussles and quid pro quos with city officials over the Commodore Hotel and the West Side rail yards, and cites a source's claim that Rudy Giuliani, then serving as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, dropped an investigation into money laundering at Trump Tower because he wanted Trump's support in the 1989 mayoral election. (After he lost, Giuliani made unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud: "They stole votes in the Black parts of Brooklyn, and in Washington Heights"). Haberman also shares findings from a 1988 poll commissioned by Roger Stone to sell Trump on "a future in national politics"; recounts White House rivalries ("Did you see I cut Bannon's balls off?" Jared Kushner asked one visitor); and reveals that administration health officials believed Trump would have died from Covid-19 if he hadn't received monoclonal antibodies. Deeply reported and immersively told, this is an essential contribution to the overloaded bookshelf on Trump.
Customer Reviews
Wow.
I am glad I read this book. I needed to know this. Haberman’s experience with Trump over the years leads me to trust her perspective. And I am more afraid of the man than I was. He is like an idiot savant with an action plan. Hopefully, he will be contained by the system before he completely overtakes it. 🤞
Just as bad as Trump
If Haberman knew of these crimes and did nothing to report them but saved them for a book, she is just as bad as Trump. Don’t buy her book. She doesn’t deserve a penny.
No in 2024
Scary book But right on target